At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories)(5)

No, she'd never talk about any of that. Not with anyone. People whispered enough about the Taylors anyway, about how her daddy couldn't seem to hold down a job and how he should be ashamed to have his mother working as a cook to keep a roof over his lazy no-good head. She hoped Noah wouldn't stop liking her once he found out about her family because if he did, she would never go back to school again and nobody, not even Gramma Del could make her.

But then maybe Noah already knew. If Gramma Del worked for Noah's daddy, maybe Noah knew all about her family and liked her anyway.

She hugged that thought close all the way home.





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"Change your clothes before you have your snack, Noah." Mary Weston took off her hat and placed it neatly in the center of the hall table with the red feather pointing toward the door.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Your parents will be home from their trip sometime this afternoon. We don't want them finding you looking like a hooligan, do we?"

"No, ma'am." He didn't have any idea what a hooligan looked like or why they wouldn't want him to look like one. Hooligan. The sound of it inside his head made him smile. Hoooo-li-gin. Somehow he'd bet hooligans had more fun than he did.

"Is something funny?"

"No, ma'am."

Mary's sour face puckered even more. "Then why aren't you upstairs changing clothes?"

Noah didn't have to be told again. He turned and raced up the steps two at a time, putting as much distance between himself and the housekeeper as he possibly could. He wished school could last twice as long. It was a lot more fun playing with the other kids than being alone in this scary old house. He ran down the second floor hallway, making sure he didn't catch sight of the pictures on the wall. His mother said these were his relatives, the people his father came from, and that he should be proud but Noah was mostly scared. They were all old and angry-looking and sometimes he thought they'd reach right out of their picture frames and spank him just because they could. He'd never told that to anyone before. He knew what they'd say. "You're letting your imagination run away with you, young man. Paintings can't hurt you. Now stop being silly and practice your piano."

He didn't want to practice his piano. He wanted to tell stories about monsters who ate stupid grownups and wizards who rose up from the rocks out beyond the Point and turned lonely little boys into knights in shining armor. He had already decided that that was what he would do when he grew up. He wanted to live in a crowded house with lots of brothers and sisters and noise and music and laughter and dogs. Maybe a dog in every room and parents who let you play in the mud without getting yelled at.

Noah's parents loved him. They told him so all the time, like when they were heading out the door for a night in Boston or a weekend on the boat. Sometimes days would go by when he didn't even see his father and that made the rare nights when they all ate dinner together special. He watched his father very carefully and tried to imitate the way he held his knife and fork, the tilt of his head when he spoke. His father was the smartest man in the entire world and, with one exception, Noah wanted to be just like him when he grew up. He'd make sure he had plenty of time for his kids.





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"What is the problem with you, child?" Gramma Del planted her hands on her hips. "There's nothing wrong with that blue jumper."

"It's not pretty enough," Gracie said, scowling at her reflection in the small white-framed mirror nailed to the wall over her dresser. "I want to be pretty."

Gramma Del sighed and Gracie pretended she hadn't heard the sound. She knew just what it meant. She wasn't pretty like Laquita or Mary Ann—the face in the mirror told her that—and most likely she never would be. Her face was small and narrow. Her eyes were plain ordinary brown and big like cartoon eyes. Her clothes always looked like they'd belonged to somebody else, even when they still had Dotty's Discount Dress Store tags on them. Even Laquita who had all those brothers and sisters had nicer dresses.

More than anything, Gracie wanted to fit in. She'd been in kindergarten for three weeks now and she had learned a lot. As much as they liked her, she was still an outsider who couldn't quite figure out why. It was more than the lookalike dresses from the big store down in Portland and the Little House lunchboxes. Maybe it was that they all had mothers who took them to school in the morning and waited outside for them in the afternoon. Even Noah's mother showed up more often than not, all dressed in her fancy clothes that made Gramma Del roll her eyes when she thought Mrs. Chase wasn't looking. "Doesn't have the sense the good Lord gave her," Gramma Del said, tugging at the hem of her grey sweater.